02.04.03
10 a.m. CDT, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2003
Expedition 6 Crew
STATUS REPORT: ISS03-5
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT #03-5
A Russian Progress 10 resupply craft successfully docked to the
International Space Station today, two days after it was launched
from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The cargo ship linked up to the aft port of the Zvezda Service Module
at 8:49 a.m. CST (1449 GMT) following a flawless automated approach
to the complex. The Progress is carrying a ton of food, fuel and
supplies for the Expedition 6 crew on board the ISS. At the time of
docking, the ISS was flying 240 statute miles over central Asia.
Expedition 6 Commander Ken Bowersox, Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin
and NASA ISS Science Officer Don Pettit monitored the docking of the
Progress from inside the station in their 73rd day in space, their
71st day on board the orbital outpost.
The station crewmembers planned to open the hatch between Zvezda and
the Progress around 1:00 p.m. CST (1900 GMT) following leak checks
between the two craft, but its supplies will not be unloaded until
Wednesday morning. The successful arrival of the Progress assures
that the three station residents will have plenty of supplies to
continue their mission until late June or early July, if required.
Among the supplies in the new Progress are replacement parts for the
Microgravity Science Glovebox in the Destiny laboratory, which
experienced a power failure back in November and has been dormant
during Expedition 6. Pettit plans to install the new parts and test
the Glovebox Wednesday. If it works, the Glovebox will be used to
support all of the experiments planned for this Expedition before the
crew returns to Earth in March.
Bowersox, Budarin and Pettit will pay a private tribute on orbit today
to Columbia’s astronauts. Station flight controllers will radio
to the crew an audio feed from the memorial ceremony at the Johnson
Space Center in Houston, TX, which is being attended by President
Bush and Mrs. Bush, and NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe.
Information on the crew's activities aboard the space station as well
as station sighting opportunities from anywhere on the Earth, is
available on the Internet at:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/
Details on station science operations can be found on an Internet site
administered by the Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall
Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., at:
http://www.scipoc.msfc.nasa.gov/
The next station status report will be issued as developments warrant.
-end-